


Rising Dawn

by goldenslumber



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 04:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenslumber/pseuds/goldenslumber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brienne has a baby. Jaime delivers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rising Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Comment Fic-a-thon for Jaime-Brienne online. Prompted. Warning: Birthing scene. Enjoy.

She'd left to gather wood. A snowstorm had blown through their forest two days before, forcing them to retreat to their lackluster shelter; through the cracks in the woods, at the back of the abandoned stable, Brienne could watch the swirling flakes. Now, the snow lay in drifts along the ground, in mounds under the trees, and along the muddy path leading away from their woods to places long forgotten.  
  
Brienne searched for twigs that had been blown into shrubs and for dead branches that rested in the lower limbs of trees – her belly made it impossible for her to stoop very low, she could no longer recall what it was like to move freely, to bend, sit, and stand without the burden of the child.  
  
If she were a proper lady, who'd married as she was told, who'd gone to live in her lord husband's castle, and breed him legitimate children, she would have spent this time with other women, past mothers or Septas, or similarly pregnant ladies, she would have prepared a room for the child, a maester would be coaching her, telling her reassuring comments from previous deliveries he'd instructed.  
  
Instead, she had Jaime's smirks and arrogant assurances of his and Podrick's preparations.  
  
As she reached for a piece of dead wood, a pain stabbed at her; she sucked in a sharp breath as her insides cramped and tightened. Brienne took a moment to lean a shoulder on a tree and assess the pain, gritting her teeth, wondering if her time really was upon her. She'd felt worse pain, of course, but when the second round of pain gripped her in its claws she cried out.  
  
Somehow, she remembered to pick up the wood before stumbling back toward the stable.  
  
Podrick was outside, butchering the horses. That seemed to be all they did now, hunt, butcher, store, and wait, anxiously. But at the sight of her pale face, Pod dropped the knife and called out – without stuttering – for Jaime.  
  
The waiting was over.  
  
Brienne watched Jaime go to pieces, then gather himself, in a matter of seconds as he walked from the door and took her in. His smile was off-kilter and he offered Brienne his arm, as the next pain nearly doubled her over. “Are the pains coming often?” he asked her.  
  
Brienne straightened, jaw clenched. “This one is passing.”  
  
“Pod,” Jaime said, turning his head. The boy looked frightened, but determined. “I need you to finish what you're doing, it'll be awhile yet.” Jaime remembered how long Cersei used to spend time in labor. “We'll need more fire wood, also, once you're finished.”  
  
Pod nodded obediently, dancing worried eyes to Brienne.  
  
Together, the two entered the stable and he lowered her uncertainly onto her bedroll before he turned to the fire in the middle of the hovel and fed it. In his head, as he rearranged the wood he was using the time to gather composure and remember all he'd been told;  _keep calm, make her breathe, wash hands, bucket of water, keep calm, breathe, have her push, cut cord, pat its back, don't faint, and above all, keep calm._  
  
 _Okay_ , he thought,  _breathing and washing hands._  He turns to his wench. “You're breathing, correct?” Brienne did not raise her eyes from the floor, hands wrapped into fists at her sides. There was a curt nod of her head. “Oh, good.” Jaime searches the room for the basin of water they keep around and he scrubs at his callouses and the dirt underneath his nails – then slips outside, dumps the basin, fills it with snow, returns inside and sets it over the fire.  
  
By that time Brienne was attempting to pull off her remaining armor pieces she'd donned that morning – something she did, merely out of habit, and to feel a little more assured about wandering off in the woods alone – but Jaime slipped to her side and rested his hand over hers, pulled them aside and undid the fasten of her cloak at her throat. “Let me.”  
  
Jaime waited for an objection, but none came – it almost made him feel a bit off, a bit more worried. Brienne merely sagged into his shoulder and he worked clumsy with one hand to undo all the buckles and laces, freeing her of everything except the tunic she wore beneath. Often he watched her eyes screw shut or her teeth grind, but she spoke none and made no peep of complaint; the only sign of her discomfort was the slight arc of her midsection every few minutes or so.  
  
The old man's voice echoed in Jaime's head; _sometimes they lay, but one time my wife squatted like any other man over his chamber pot, and the trick is catching the babe_ – “Perhaps you could try squatting.”  
  
“No.” Brienne rubbed at the top of her stomach and winced. There was a fevered  _absolutely not_ , in those sapphire eyes when they hiked up to his face, noting every well-earned crease, laugh line, the twist of his lips that remained merely no matter what, sharp-edged, fine-cut emeralds for eyes. Brienne reached a hand up to him; Jaime sank to the floor once more and clutched the hand between stump and palm. He did not feel useful, he felt a little like a child himself. Simple and dim and useless; if this were a battle, and there was an enemy – he wished he could draw his sword and slash his way through the situations and uncertainties.  
  
Alas, he does not have a sword, nor hand.  
  
Only his wench. And lips. Lips that press into her fingers; warm and silken, imploring, wanting to be more than a mouth pressed into her knuckles, but a comfort, a relief. Helpful, if only to express to her:  _I'm here, I'm staying. I won't leave._  
  
Another pain came at Brienne, worse than the last few and in a grapple of fingers, hers closed around his stump, painfully tight and Jaime pressed his lips all the harder into her hand. “Promise me,” Brienne panted. “Promise. On Oathkeeper..”  
  
“On Oathkeeper,” Jaime quipped. There was a pause, as Brienne's leg threatened to curl up to her chest, closer to her pain, as if invisible ropes were pulling her into a ball; and Jaime managed a wiry smile. “I promise not to fling this child from a tower.”  
  
She shook her head. With everything in her head, his jokes were quickly assessed, then shoved aside. All her fears, all the things she'd put aside, not thought about, and instead had went on a hunt or taught Pod some more sword maneuvers to avoid.. they came, and were amplified. The child might be born with a defect; she might fail one more time as a woman and be unable to deliver it. Worse, unable to nurse – how would they feed a newborn, there, without any other woman, and nothing but tough meat?  
  
“Promise me, if there's something wrong.. with the baby..” she didn't want to say it. It was horrible. But too true. “Promise me, that you'll take it away and I won't see. If it's cold, or still, or in pain–” She would not bear it; she'd attached herself to this being for nine months, and would not be able to handle that kind of whip lash. She gave into the next pain and waited for Jaime's answer.  
  
The wiry smile curled up and died. He dropped her hand to his lap, arranging himself with crossed legs beside her as she propped herself up on the blankets and sacks of grain they had left. In his head he wondered if he could pull the baby out of her, to find it unbreatheing, pale and unresponsive and leave her – and somehow find an appropriate snowbank to stash the tiny body, where a wolf will sniff it out and tear it to scarlet drops across snow and bones one could pick teeth with.  
  
“I promise.”  
  
Podrick came in with more firewood, his eyes round and wide, as he approached. Jaime rose from his place beside the wench – who'd been stiff and clenched into place and working her jaw against teeth for some time in quiet – and he accepted the wood. It was placed aside, and he took the basin from the fire, the snow melted and hot. He expected it to be warm by the time it'd be needed.  
  
Jaime glanced at the wench, who twisted her hips slightly before settling against the bedroll once more. Part of him wanted her to tell him to do something, but he knew she did not know anything. Nothing more than he did.  _Cersei would know,_  he thought. He could use his twin right now. This was ever her situation – she was good at kids. Even she would ebb away from her shallow side in that situation, issuing her directions in that self-assured voice Jaime knows so well.  
  
But Cersei was not there. It was him, the boy, and the wench. “Still breathing?” he called at her from across the stable where he aided Podrick in storing the horse meat; by lifting up a square of the floor, where underneath they'd dug a good depth in the dirt, capturing the cold of the underground, packed with snow and other foods. “Just keep doing that.”  
  
Brienne grunted.  
  
She took in air and exhaled. Most of the time her eyes were closed, but around her she could feel the heat of the cracking fire, the shuffle of her companion's feet, Jaime's sudden and sometimes urgent words to Pod, their softer speech she could not make out, the brush of fingers on her forehead, a frequent clutch of her hand or shoulder. Some tease or joke: “You sweat like a pig, you know.”  _Should I dim the fire?_  “I said breathe, not gasp and pant at the air.”  _Does it hurt that bad?_  “I can't wait to tell people the Kingslayer is now an official midwife and baby deliverer.” _Don't blame me, kay?_  
  
 _Whatever you do, don't blame me – I'm already blaming myself enough._  
  
Brienne was in labor throughout the night. The worst thing about her pain was that it was unfamiliar – so foreign. She thought she knew pain, she knew it well, but again and again, she finds this woman pain, worse than the knightly ones. It felt as though her body were fighting itself, trying to force what she carried from her, and yet it seemed the child would never be born.  
  
She was not meant to be a mother, she knew. And about halfway through the labor, she resolved that she no longer cared about the baby, only that the pain would end. The men were groggy, but anxious around her as she worked from thought to thought, broken too often by contractions, and Podrick sat still and Jaime paced. He would wince every time something did escape her; her thoughts wandered back to the tales other women have told her, of how the men never stayed, how they went for hunts or waited in the hall or drank somewhere far away, and Jaime stayed – every time the thought occurred to her, she'd lift a hand, reaching in a non-specific direction and he'd rush forward to take it.  
  
He spoke often; he did not like the quiet – he remembered Cersei used to scream, high-pitched and squealing, whereas Brienne only grunted or moaned, rarely. More often Brienne beat a fist on the floor or clenched her muscles all across her body. Sometimes she'd peer at him through slitted eyes or gaze at the fire, or her lips would fold into a sort of grimace-smile in response to whatever ridiculous thing he could spew from his mouth.  
  
She'd promised herself she would not scream in Jaime's presences, and broke that promise many times.  
  
He'd never heard her scream before. Not like that. Jaime remembered promising the Bloody Murmurs that he wouldn't scream, no matter what they did to him – and then breaking that oath, as many others in the past, by choking out straggled cries until his throat was raw and he'd passed out in the pain. Nothing was going to take her away from the pain. She would bear it until she finished the task, there would be no fainting. But she would do it, he knew.  
  
 _The wench is strong enough to bear this, and the battle field,_  he thinks.  _A feat near no one can claim._  
  
When the time came to push, no one knew what to do. Jaime made strange encouragements and Brienne clutched him by the front of his shirt as she sat, legs apart, refusing to pinken in the face whenever Jaime turned his eyes there – Podrick, thankfully, took to sitting outside; he'd gone pale at the sound of her shouting, and Jaime spared him of the rest.  
  
“One more time, I think,” Jaime said, smile fragile on his face as he reached a hand between her legs. It was sticky and he could see more than he ever thought – a head, a thin ruffle of pale hair, splattered to a purple-splotched scalp with fluid. “Looks like you, poor kid.”   
  
Brienne gave a breathless sort of wheeze – whether laugh, true worry, or disapproval, he did not know. She bore down a few more times, twisted the fabric of the bedroll around her fingers, and with a last cry, the child was free.  
  
If she'd had the strength, Brienne would have pushed herself up into the sitting position, to get a look, to actually hear what words Jaime was uttering, working awkwardly with one hand – he cradled the infant between arm and chest and patted its back and washed at its face with the basin of water and looked pale, but sure about his actions, as he repeated the list of what to do under his breath. The cord was cut with a cleaned boot knife. A sharp, powerful cry broke the stiflingly still room and Brienne felt a jolt course through her.   
  
Jaime paused when he saw Brienne's reaching hand and he dipped closer. Her fingers touched the baby's downy shoulder with one finger, and she burst into sobs. Jaime grinned. “What I tell you, I told you I could do this.” The baby still wailed, but Brienne's fingers worked to the child's face, ran softly over the head, through silk threads and across impossible hot and soft skin. “And you doubted me.”  
  
“Shush,” she murmured. Jaime wondered if she directed that at him or the child.  
  
He briefly drew away from her to tug a blanket free from his bed roll and wrapped the child tightly – he checked first. “I wonder who she'll take after,” he muttered when he set the girl on Brienne's chest. “She's already got the wench part down, but who knows? Maybe she'll grow up one day and kill kings.” Somehow the thought wasn't all too dark; Jaime wouldn't mind a child who would do the same thing he did – he'd kill Aerys again if he could.  
  
Brienne wondered to herself, if her daughter would be alien to her – if her baby will think her a freak, too, and become a sophisticated young lady, bastard or not, who liked dresses and lemon cakes and jewelry.. and she didn't care. Whatever her child wanted to be, she'd let it be. Knight or septa or lady or camp follower, kingslayer or princess or silent sister.  
  
“Shush,” Brienne croaked at her daughter, exhausted, but fighting the lull of her eyelids. Her eyes were blue, the tuft of sparse hair on her head as golden as a Lannister's, she had Brienne's freckles, but her father's face – she was a hefty baby, but that made no foretale for her in the future. And Brienne felt as though she'd been kicked in the gut, her heart swelled. A little dizzy, a little groggy from no sleep in a night, a little stuffy from her sudden on and off of tears, she turned to Jaime with wide eyes – and smiled, crooked teeth and all.  
  
Jaime moved, shifted, and sat so that he could pull Brienne to his chest, except that she shifted away from him, against the propped up blankets and sacks, and pulled him to her instead, until he was pressed close to the child, head resting just near her breasts – he could hear Brienne's heart race, and her breath shudder and she was soon asleep. He didn't sleep, he stayed where he was, wide awake, watching the baby.. for what seemed for a long time, as it gurgled and wiggled, until he lifted a cautious hand, unfurled his fingers and drew one along its pale, freckled cheek.  
  
He slipped it from Brienne's limp arms into his, sandwiched between both – he'd never been allowed to hold Joffrey, thin and screaming, not Tommen plump and red, not Myrcella hiccuping and spitting. He's watched them before, felt that almost curiosity, then was chased away by Cersei and her hissing words.  
  
Brienne's breath hitched in sleep and his eyes flickered to her – and almost with a sort of resignation he returned the girl to her arms, moved around to her legs and as he cleaned her up, he remembered all the times she'd bathed him, cleaned him when he soiled himself, and aided him, after he'd lost his hand.   
  
Podrick came back after and Jaime showed the boy the baby.  
  
“What will you name her?” Pod asked.  
  
They'd spoke of it before, argued plenty, and she'd called more than one of his suggestions stupid –  _Sapphire_  – and he'd told her that hers were laughably ridiculous –  _Miskten_  – but they'd found one, that made him feel good every time he heard it: “Joanna.” Gods, Jaime could feel his father turning around in his grave, outraged, that he'd named a bastard after his lady mother.  
  
“P-p-pretty.”  
  
“Want to hold her?” Jaime offered. Secretly, the idea displeased him; he did not want to put her down. Not yet. She was sleeping heavily against his chest already, snoring, like her mother. It made his smile impossibly wider – it made the screams forgotten.  
  
Podrick held her, briefly, awkwardly, before Jaime could no longer stand it. The boy curled up in his bedroll to the side of the fire and said no more. Jaime on the other hand, did not sleep – he slipped his mat next to Brienne's, tossed a blanket over her, as she rolled away from the pile that propped her up and she rested her head near his side – Jaime lay on his side, propped up by an elbow, turned toward the sleeping wench, the baby laying against the curve of his stomach as his stump rested against her tummy, drew down her side and rested there, in an clumsy cradle.  
  
And he did not sleep.  
  
Instead, he spoke, quietly, to his daughter.  
  
About things he'd never thought to share before.  
  
Ugly truths, and tourneys, and wars, and the Targaryens, and all the debts that she'd one day pay. The courage of a lion, the real lions him and Cersei had seen in the depths of Casterly Rock, a nursery rhyme he remembered his mother used to sing, Tyrion's best jokes, the way he secretly loves Brienne's shocked face, and all the things he does just to draw it out. How he doesn't want her to ever call him Kingslayer. That only he's allowed to call Brienne a wench, and her mother has exactly thirty-two freckles on her left shoulder - he knows, he counted. That she had three siblings, two alive..  
  
Jaime spoke, until his voice was raw and tired, and the dawn was rising in the sky outside, gray and yellow, signaling a new day.


End file.
